Until death do us take

The autumn equinox has come and gone; the days are getting shorter.

Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and the Day of the Dead are over; the death of the year is upon us.

Nature dies in order to be reborn. We acknowledge this as death is the only certainty in life. It’s its only condition. Avoiding death until it comes is what being alive is; being aware of death until it comes is what being human is.

I take this time to contemplate my own mortality. I watch Tales from Earthsea, an adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s work by Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli, where a boy needs to overcome his fear of death, rather than death itself, in order to live. I read Patti Smith, whose love for her husband transcends his death into her art. I think about the generations of ancestors that came before me; the dead whom I thank for my life. I embrace my finite time, without seeking its end.

While this soul searching is all good and well for the sake of my own serenity, it is not something that will help the thousands of people grieving and fearing death in Gaza right now. Reading about the incomprehensible number of casualties each day over the last month, death becomes more than a philosophical idea to be embraced. Death becomes a living, breathing thing; an entity of eternity that is as real as life itself.

Celebrating death is impossible this year. Acknowledging it is impossible to avoid. Accepting it is perhaps more importan than ever, so that we can be reborn without fear, in hope and peace.